


Take Care

by CookieDoughMe



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Blood, Domesticity, First-Aid, Fluff, Multi, Post-Troubles, Threegulls, kitchen accident, the troubles are over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 13:22:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12255228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieDoughMe/pseuds/CookieDoughMe
Summary: A little moment of domestic normality, when the Troubles are over and a cut is a cut, and blood is just blood.





	Take Care

It was a sunny Saturday morning in a quiet little coastal town called Haven. Duke was sleeping off a busy Friday night at the Gull and Audrey had gone to run some early errands in town before the place got too busy with tourists. Nathan, having nothing too particular to do, decided to make brunch for Duke for when he woke up.

He peered in the fridge, realising as he looked at the contents that Duke really did do almost all the cooking. That wasn't really fair, surely? He would have to either cook more, or make sure he Duke didn't have to do much in the way of other household chores.

He rummaged around for a minute, working out what he could reasonably make, before he started pulling out ingredients and then reaching for a chopping board and knife.

He heard Duke get a up a moment later and head for the bathroom; hopefully he hadn't woken him too early. He started humming to himself as he chopped. Duke might be the gourmet cook, but he had managed to feed himself perfectly fine for years and surely he could manage to …

“Shit!” he exclaimed loudly. The knife had slipped from the pepper he'd been chopping and veered into his hand instead.

After years unable to feel a thing, the experience of pain still felt like a novelty and though he knew the cut wasn't really that deep, the unfamiliar feeling pulsed through him like a shockwave and he stood there stunned. He leant forward against the counter and swore again as a drop of blood fell onto a slice of red pepper.

Then out of nowhere Duke was there, a hand on his shoulder. “Jesus Nate, how did you even … This is why I don't let you cook,” he added, only half serious as he grabbed a roll of kitchen paper and pressed a handful of sheets to the cut.

“Hold that there, I'll get some bandages. Nate? Are you OK?” Duke switched his attention from Nathan’s hand to his face. “It doesn't look _that_ deep?”

Nathan shook his head a little, “It's just … it _hurts_.”

“OK, you'll be fine,” said Duke, pulling a chair out from the table for him. “Sit down. I'll grab the first aid kit from the bathroom, get you patched up. OK?”

Nathan managed a nod and sat down.

When Audrey arrived home a little while later, she insisted on taking a close look at his hand. “I'm fine,” Nathan insisted. “Duke looked after me,” he said with a smile. “I was _trying_ to look after him,” he added, “But maybe cooking wasn't the best way to do it.”

“Sometimes it still comes a shock the Troubles are over,” said Duke, and he held up his hand for them to see, a drop of Nathan’s blood smeared across his palm. Duke looked stunned; remembering another time he had had Nathan's blood on his hand. A time when it would have sunk into his skin and turned his eyes silver. A time when that curse asked him to do things he would rather not think about.

Nathan reached over with one of the paper towels to wipe the blood clean and then grabbed Duke's hand with his good one, squeezing hard.

“I won't cook again, I promise,” he said after a moment, his voice mock-serious; just the right tone to draw a smile out of Duke.

“Better not,” he returned, voice somehow flat and warm at the same time. “There's only so much ill treatment my knives will cope with.”

Audrey watched them smile at each other for a long moment, their hands clenched tightly together, knuckles starting to turn white. When she'd come home and seen the blood she'd felt the memories of times she would have had to spring into action; calling for help, calling an ambulance, talking down some Troubled person, or pulling the two of them apart and trying to diffuse some stupid argument or misunderstanding.

But now, she realised, she didn't have to do a thing.

“Seems to me the both of you are looking after each other just fine,” she said with a smile.


End file.
